A Tapping at My Door, David Jackson

Great opening. Woman alone in a remote house hears tapping on her door. We then go inside her mind as she moves from fear to mental strength to practical action and back and forth. Movies (The Omen, Little Shop of Horrors, The Birds) come to her mind. Finally she sees a bird (crow, maybe) pecking at kitchen window. She goes outside--no more (admitting to) fear. It's a murder mystery, so courage doesn't pay.

creepy details: Murderer slits her windpipe so she has the sense she is screaming but there is no sound.

too much: Murderer hammers her three times and slits her throat, but she doesn't pass out or die. She stays alive so we can have more violence.

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Puppy, Story by George Saunders

PUPPY Dysfunctional family has puppy that they need to get rid of. Mom places ad; family is coming over. Description of family. Mom: husband changed from long-haired attractive to stooped old man. Husband: talks constantly of living on a farm and doing what needs to be done, though he never lived on a farm. Conversations together: Sell and move to Arizona, get hooked on phonics for kids, buying a car wash. . . wonderful randomness. Straight-laced suburbanite comes to look at puppy. Seems like she will buy it, even though she is repelled by house. (Dog turds on carpet, filthy.) She is proud of how accepting she is until she looks out window and sees white trash's son tied by harness to a tree. Reader knows he is a menace to himself, darting across I-90, for example. Suburban mother beats hasty retreat, leaving dog to be (probably) drowned by dad who does what has to be done. Suburbanite remembers her own pathetic ch...

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Sorcerer, Movie 2.5 stars

Roy Scheider, based on Wages of Fear. Scheider is involved in a robbery in USA. He robs a church connected to the mob--the mob puts out a contract to kill him. He flees to Nicaragua. Poor, miserable . . . and a contract killer shows up. He takes his chance--driving a cargo of plastic explosives over a mountain to put out an oil well fire. His would-be killer, though a series of events, becomes his co-driver. The other truck has a Frenchman involved in a financial scheme who has had to flee France. He, too, needs money to get out of the miserable little town. Driving the trucks is the focus of last half of movie. Explosion at every turn is possible. Frenchman and his co-driver blow up when wheel comes off. Scheider's co-driver killed by bandits (Scheider and he have become respectful of one another.) Scheider carries the explosives in. He will get 40,000 pesos. He's about to fly out of the little town, with some hope, when a car...

Carl Deuker -- Books, Movies, TV

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